Leaving the Animals

It is difficult for us to leave the ranch.  I know we aren’t alone in that space.  We wouldn’t trade our life here, with the animals, for anything but it does make it very difficult to travel.  Unlike some of our other retired friends, we can’t take off at the drop of a hat and go hither and yon.

Fortunately, we have two very good people who take care of our animals when we do leave.  They both are experienced with horses and we trust them.  Of course, we still look for the daily text telling us everything is okay, but we don’t worry too much.  Laura also sent us photos which was really nice.

Pistol

For Thanksgiving, we traveled to my father’s home — about six hours away by car.  Laura stayed at the house and took care of everyone, in the snow and cold.  We had the horses in their stalls in the barn so she didn’t have to slog out to the pastures.  The first day that Laura was here, Lucy got a bit impatient while waiting for dinner and was demonstrating all her athletic moves.  Of course, all the bucking and leaping about didn’t make Laura want to go into the stall but Lucy did, eventually, chill.

Lucy is also a pig.  She poops and pees in her bedding, unlike the other three who do their business outside in their run-outs.  Flash takes big mouthfuls of his hay and dunks it in his water.  As a result, the area around his water is always wet and the water in the bucket is a lovely shade of green.  Unless the weather is really bad, or the snow is deep, it’s easier for us if they are in their pastures and they are happier there too.

Laura stayed at our place, but she had additional places where she was feeding pets and livestock.  She had asked us about taking the dogs with her and I said that Sage hates the car and it isn’t fair to leave her behind and just take Kersey so we expected that they didn’t go with her.

Kersey loves the car.

She took them both.  And, Sage was fine.

Not thrilled, but not unhappy either.